Random rambling 1:

Am going to Bintan tomorrow for 3D2N to do nothing but slack and forget that I ever have to go back to work.

Random rambling 2:

Opened email at 1:45pm to find that had entered wrong amount for Bintan trip and had to pay additional to make up the difference, or face reservation being let go without notice. Deadline of payment: same day, 12pm. -_______-!!!!!!!!!!!! [My understanding: If I do not pay on time, I could potentially go all the way to Bintan tomorrow morning only to find that the room would have been given to someone else.]

Random rambling 3:

Frantically log onto website only to find that payment was unsuccessful.... twice, with 2 different cards. Frantically call agency 5 times, only to find...... phone call mysteriously hung on other side. Wondering if my late payment among many others has been responsible for financial downfall of travel firm.

Random rambling 4:

Finally get someone on the line, spoke to her as *politely* as I could without actually shouting *too loudly, I hope* at her, and she confirms that the reservation will be held till I come back to Singapore. *phew*

Random rambling 5:

Finally feeling my heart beat go back to normal. Sighing over how job has quickened temper. At least I'll be able to go on my 3 days as planned.

There is a rather discordant [read: f**king NOISY!!!] symphony being played in my house at the moment that is drowning out anything else played in the house.

This symphony is played by the HDB Construction Unsymphonic Orchestra, and the programme is as follows:

Opus of the Thumping Hammers
Clattering Planks
Symphony of the Drills

The performance is for the benefit of Replacement Metal Roofworks and is performed free of charge for my block every afternoon. Because it is held on the roof, I have Category 1 seats to this engaging performance.

Here is my resounding response to their performances:

Done by one Seb Lester on Flickr.

This is a post about Kuroi, who has so completely integrated himself into my life in a way that Shiroi [the iPod classic] did not.

Yes, a month or so with Kuroi, the iPod touch, and I'm in danger of selling my soul forever to Steve Jobs. How do I feel about Kuroi? Well, after using him a while, my predominant thought is:

Why didn't anyone THINK of this before? It's GENIUS!!! *end fangirl drool*

Through sheer ingenuity and possibly the backing of the devil, Apple has managed to come up with something that is not quite an iPod, but more of a mobile entertainment device. Other than the usual storage of music, videos and photos, [was it that long ago that MP3 players could only hold music?] Kuroi also holds contacts, notes, a calendar. It also holds the one killer app that killed me, namely, a wireless adapter .

Paired with the Safari browser, this made the iPod into a mini PDA, but the one that really killed me down was the App store. Connect to this baby, and you get games, utilities, games, note-taking tools, games, photo apps, and did I mention the games?

And half of them are free!!!!! The other half you pay for, but some are as cheap as 99cents. Argh!

Ok, if I sound bad, it's because I know I really got it bad. I started out with a few games in it, and I used it to read blogs and mail on the go, but last night I opened the App store and that's when it all tumbled down for me.

In went drawing software, note-taking software, an app for a fashion website, and a Japanese dictionary -_-!!! And in the space of a few minutes of each other........

But on a more sober note, I can't help but think that this is what mobile computing should be all about. Here I have a device that fits into my pocket, that can surf the Internet on wireless, and that can download straightaway and painlessly, numerous other applications that would make it stronger. The reason why I was so hooked on the App store was that it was so darn easy to download them. A matter of clicking on a button, waiting a few minutes and then the app was downloaded. No opening of new and unnecessary windows, no having to choose a file to download it in, since it went straight to desktop and all free.

I have run into some problems with it, of course. A lack of office tools makes it unsuitable for office drones who need their Microsoft packages, and also means that I am not able to do work on the go with this, unlike my previous PDA, Suss. [Although with something this sleek, you won't want to do work on it anyway. :p] Typing is a chore without a stylus. And don't talk about connectivity to other devices. No infrared and no Bluetooth, so everything I keep in there is stuck in there, unfortunately.

But other than that, the touchscreen, the Apps, the games are addictive enough for a leisure user to keep in her pocket. The OS is simple enough to quickly understand and get used to. If only I could hook this baby onto mobile broadband, it would be perfect... which makes its big brother, the iPhone look more and more tempting.............

*end hungry fangirl drool

It's getting more and more addictive to play with Kuroi on a wireless
connection... Makes those mobile broadband plans more tempting anyway,
if not for the threat of me becoming a permanent resident of the
Internet... Sigh...

--
Getting all the slack I can...
http://boredslacker.blogspot.com

Bossa Nova

No, this is not a post about beach jazz, this is really the 2 kittens suddenly adopted by Quet.

Quet's friend had found the above Nova and his black sibling Bossa near the Esplanade, and if she and her colleagues had not rescued the kits, they could have been culled by the authorities.

Nova was placid enough to let us take her out of the box and walk around the seat. Bossa, being the more psycho one, tried a few times to scratch the hand that tried to take it out, so we gave up after a while. Later on, when it probably got a bit lonely, we took it out, whereupon it tried to make a break for freedom, ran into Yenn's vest and encouraging its obedient sibling to do the same thing. [Yenn had the scars to show for it]

They are cute, though. Here's Nova: [check out the ears]



We called them Bossa Nova because of the jazz that was playing at the open stage. Indeed, while Quet was driving them home, they mewed the loudest when her Dark Knight soundtrack was playing, but kept quiet when she switched to 92.4 These are some cultured kitties!

Quet and her friend were supposed to split the kits between themselves, but later the kits were found to be too young and too fond of each other to split, so both cats ended up in her house!

Last I heard, they were rapidly running amok all over her house, playing with the gleeful abandon that all children have and causing no end of anxiety to their new owner. In the two days that they had been in her house, they had ran amok, making her have to chase them down, bankrupted her with their vet checkup, caused her to sprain an ankle, and got themselves stuck in her massage chair while they were running from her.

After I bemusedly heard all this from her on Monday night, I can only conclude, that these kits are not destined to be this for her:

Anime Festival 2008

You gotta love an event when cosplayers turn up. It's guaranteed to liven up any anime event where the main purpose is to sell as much merchandise as possible and promote any screenings as much as possible. Because, as from the picture above, inviting the cosplayers invariably invites the fanboy/girl-photographers. Yes, I know, moi being one of the mentioned.

The event itself was interesting, but there's a glut of too many retailers [toy sellers, comic sellers, art companies selling books and posters, anime companies promoting upcoming movies and serials, and one manga cafe] and too few fanart. [exactly 4 stalls -_-!!!] Which is a pity, because judging from the art on those fan tables, it's a crime against society that some of those people aren't doing this professionally. One more group of victims of the recession. *shrugs*

But you din' read this post to read my rantings on the unfair treatment of Singapore artists. No, you did it to see pictures of cosplayers, didn't you, and here they are:


Other cosplayers have a hard enough time getting around in their costume. This guy did it complete with skates.

I love the detail and attention on hers.

I have to insert a blogpost of thanks to the cosplayers who gamely posed for the shots, despite us photographers hovering around like shot-hungry vultures everytime one of them so much as combed their hair. The cosplayers I approached for some shots were more than willing to pose in their costumes for my 1 or 2 shots, and the other 100 that came from other photogs as soon as they spotted them posing.

I'm learning something about photographing other people. Most people are more than willing to pose if you ask politely and take a good shot of them. [no one wants fugly shots of themselves on the Internet] So if you ever want to take shots of people, the first thing to do is just ask.

I loved the delicate way she posed with the flower.



When I was taking the picture of the two cosplayers above, I looked down and I saw something you would not usually see on the ground:

A tail! Belonging to one of the next 2 cosplayers:
And this guy was my favourite of the entire show. He was not the best dressed, he was not the most detailed, he was probably not the most realistic costume.....

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But he's the cutest, can?????? Most of the time he had a friend helping him to get around to places, because, face it, where are the eyeholes on that costume?

Fun though it was to walk through and take photos, more could be done for the con. I remember going for one that was organized by a major fan club once and you could tell the difference. There were tons more fan events, fan booths, fan art, fan stuff... you get the idea. It's more interesting to shop through the art done by fans who really put their heart and soul into their art and stuff rather than.... a bunch of panels put up by odious Odex. And how about more art and doujinshi?

The con has potential, just wished it did more.

blogging wirelessly

From my twitted box some may have guessed correctly that I am having
one he'll n I mean HELL of a time trying to go wireless. A summary of
problems is as follows:

1. I forgot the password to my wireless@sg account. Initial attempts
to sign up for a new account were disastrous. Everytime I made a
mistake, the login page just erased all info previously entered,
meaning I had to re-enter everything again... N after 3 tries I just
gave up.

N u know what was one alleged mistake? The salutation for god's
sake.... U mean I should have put myself as a Mr. instead???

2. When I had successfully signed up I tried logging on in a
library... N was told 'wrong user name'. This led to 10 different
permutations being tried till I realized all that was missing was
'@singnet' at the end of the username.......*pengs

3. After all that, still cannot log in!!!!! I had to change physical
location and try another network before I got in...

4. I can't type in Blogger!!!! *cries I really dunno why but I just can't!!!

Finally I'm down to typing this in Gmail and emailing it to my
blog.... I had other posts planned but now the only things I wanna
blog down are all the stuff that irritated me! Bwagh!

( wannabe digital nomads treat this as a caveat when u are trying to
get online outdoors.... Mobile broadband seems so tempting now...
Sigh... )

--
Getting all the slack I can...
http://boredslacker.blogspot.com

I'm really praying I do get reimbursed for this:

Meet Sonny, the latest addition to a growing line of electronic products in my house. ^_^!!! Even if every photo I have is saved in soft copy in my laptop, it still is somewhat of a nostalgic thrill to hold a real photo in your hands, something that can survive crashes, hangups and can be hung and viewed without a 45sec bootup.

And printing out the above picture taken in Greece makes me not regret paying good money for Kenny and Sonny both. ^-^ Lookit that colour and detail!

So my day playing hooky, ahem, on MC turned out to be productive than I thought. While stopping a leaky nose, I managed to successfully install and use:

1. One card reader
2. One Nokia PC suite
3. One photo printer driver

Plus printing out 5 sample photos on said printer. Man, if only I had this kind of productivity at work.

Then again, maybe not. :p

For those who like eggs, whether fresh or scrambled, you have got to see this!

An appointment made to hang out on Deepavali Monday was duly cancelled on the morning of Deepavali Monday due to familial obligations. Namely, the obligation to hang out with family instead of me because of lack of time spent with them.

This is the kind of thing that you get irritated at because you shouldn't be irritated. Yes, he did make the appointment with you first, but he spends more time with you than his own family, but he cancelled last minute, but you know you'll see him next weekend and so on in a sisyphean cycle of forgiveness and blame.

I'm more irritated at the last minute nature of it all. Well, heck, if you wanted to hang with your family, then you tell me in advance and I'll just find other entertainment. But don't let me look forward to meeting you, only to let me down on the day itself, when it's too late to jio other people out ma. [and even when I surfed the cinema websites there's not even a show worth seeing. -_-!] I'm irritated that his family would 'book' him on such last minute timing, I'm irritated that he would go along with the last minute timing, disregarding plans made with me, I'm irritated that I have to play second fiddle to the deserving ones who contributed to his genetic makeup.

Bwah! I need something to stop me from getting more irritated by the minute......

Seasons come, seasons go, and no one knows how the leaves will fall
Life is the throw of a dice into the roulette table
All we can do
Walk in circles while doubting the sands beneath you
Praying they never part

Sinfest is a wickedly clever comic strip that I subscribe to, and the artist does great storylines. Especially with all the politic-financio drama happening in the US right now, which provides great fodder for some of his strips. Here is the latest, which I couldn't resist pasting here:

You must check out his cartoons here.

A random thought....

Pluses and Minuses of doing things yourself as opposed to getting others to do them

Doing your own cleaning
Plus:
- You get to tidy things up the way you want
Minus:
- Ever tried vacuuming and mopping an entire house? You have to have tried it to know why I call it a minus

Doing your own work
Plus:
- You get things done exactly the way you want it, without having to listen to someone else's opinion
Minus:
- No scrapegoats when something goes wrong

Sex - Doing it yourself
Plus:
- You get it done exactly the way you want
Minus:
- Er, isn't the point of it to be with someone else? [doing a solo act once in a while, fair enough, but for the rest of your life??]

Random thought of the day. Thank you for reading.

Sales and Weddings

I went for an FJ Benjamin sale on Saturday, where brands like the Gap and Guess Marciano were on sale. It was also a sale where the acrazed shopping bitch was prominently on display.

Witness: A guy pours a box of bags into the discount bin, where they are promptly and thoroughly snatched up by very quick hands, one being mine. I assess the bag, decide it's not worth it, and then throw it into the sea of handbags, where it's promptly snatched up by two lady sharks instead. *shudder* If I had thrown it back more slowly, I might have lost a hand.

Told by Quet: She carries a Raoul bag around her shoulder after deciding to buy it. Now, you see a woman carrying a bag, you assume that bag is her property right? NOT! A woman actually grabs at the bag on her shoulder, and then when Quet turns and glares at her, she actually asks if she's buying it.

Uh duh!!! If it's already on her shoulder, you think she's just carrying it around for the sake of a cheap shoulder massage?

Strangely enough, I like such sales. Amidst such predators, I feel like a hunter, sneaking and grabbing for prey....... :p Although that may mean I'm also eating too much meat in my diet.

---

I'm reaching the age where my friends and I are getting a whole lot of wedding invitations from people around our age group. And to the inevitable question: No, I'm not marrying him yet. :p It really seems as if most of our friends have reached the sell-by date and are now flying off the shelves a la a 90% off sale from FJ Benjamin.

It used to be that we would mainly meet for birthday parties. [still do, actually :P] but now instead of cake and dinner, it's cold dish, chicken, fish, seafood, noodles, dessert and the complimentary doorgift. And it's more expensive than any birthday present I ever bought. -_-!!!

And it's no picnic for the couple either, as anyone who's had to attend to the logistics of a wedding can attest to. All kind of finicky details, from the gown right down to what kind of cloth to be used for the tablecloth. -_-!!! Personally, bridezillas who insist on planning down to the tablecloth confound me. To me, something white that I don't have to personally launder later on is ok with me.

Although the DF brought me to one of his colleague's that was remarkably elegant in its simplicity and cheapo-ness. The couple saved a bundle by booking a SAF chalet at Changi, [yea I know, not the most ideal of locations] and had a buffet dinner for all the wedding guests instead of the usual ten courses.

But yet, the air was cool when they took their vows. The wedding couple facing the calm sea as they were joined in matrimony, the sky almost at dusk. No one had to dress formally and because of the out of way location, it provided a great amount of privacy. If you couldn't go to Bali, this was the best and closest you could get.

Interesting. Sometimes I wonder if by worrying about all the nitty details, we lose sight that what is at heart is the joining of two hearts, together, through all of life, till death do us part.

Not very happy at work

The longer I stay in my job, the more mornings that I don't want to get out of my bed.

The longer I stay in my job, the more I get used to it, and the accompanying generous months of paid leave.

It's strange. Sometimes, every morning for a week, I wake up thinking that yes, this is the day I'll play hooky and take a false MC and pay the doctor for that one glorious day off that I can use to regain my nerves and sit in the library and read all morning and take a afternoon nap after lunch.

And then I somehow pull my unwilling body to work, scream for about 4 hours, stone for about another 2 or 3 or 4 after lunch, and then marvel at the fact that I actually managed through another workday.

I find it a miracle of God that I actually managed to get through so many weeks without succumbing to the MC path of temptation. [aside from the one day that I was actually sick] My [seemingly] robust health at times seems like a blessing and a burden.

My friends and I have become the Bedsheet Bimbos.

This started out innocently enough when Candle first discovered Aussino, and that one could have colour-coordinated, 200 threadcount bedsheets and pillowcases. Then Yenn got into it, buying quilts, bedsheets and more pillowcases than the number of pillows she has on her bed. ^-^!

This month Candle, Yenn, Quet and I embarked upon the hapless Aussino staff at Paragon during their sale. Before we did, over dinner, she was telling us about how some people she knew had spent close to $500 on bedsheets, pillowcases, quilts and other assorted at Aussino.

"Who spends that much on bedsheets?" Famous last words.

After the shop closed and we were the last customers in the store, the cashier racked up sales from us to a total of $412.50. That's like an average of $100 spent by one person on bedsheets. -_-!!!!!!! [for the record, I only bought a comforter set at $42.]

Who spends that much on bedsheets? Us, the Bedsheet Bimbos.

I'm touched. *sniff* While I was in Singapore whining away about not having any company, the rest of the gang, on the last day of their trip, eked out the last remaining baht they had to come together to buy me this surprise present: A new LeSportsac pouch!
The design is......... so typically me. :p Looking at the pouch and the shirt they got for me, I have to admit I'm quite the easiest person to shop for, as long as it has 2 ears and whiskers......

The pouch is not exactly this design, more squarish, but it was the closest to it I could find on the LeSportsac website......

*sniff* tai gan dong liao........ Now I gotta figure out what to put in it... >^_^<

In the midst of the political unrest in Bangkok, Candle, Quet, Yenn and Jules have decided to fly there on holiday. *sigh* My hopes are they don't get caught in any unrest and end up having to run from angry mobs carrying loads of shopping bags. I'm getting pretty bored in Singapore with all my regular dinner and drinking kakis off shopping, getting massaged, and avoiding rioters. Thursday I kept thinking I wanted to call someone for dinner, and then I had to mentally remind myself that the names I wanted to call were all overseas. :s Argh! Sat I'm just gonna sit in a corner and stone...........

I'm currently reading a book that's making me think [slightly more than usual].

The Lucifer Effect is written by Philip Zimbardo, the same professor that was in charge of the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment. This was the one where he got 2 groups of students in a realistic prison-like setting to see what was the effect of being imprisoned on guards and prisoners. The experiment had to be terminated after only 5 days [he intended it to go on for 2 weeks] due to the increasing sadistic tendencies of the students assigned as guards, and due to a moralistic awakening on the part of the professor.

Conclusion: Situational forces are strong enough to significantly alter people's behaviour, often to unrecognisable states. Students who are assigned to be guards became sadistic SOBs, but even more scarily, students assigned to become prisoners became depressed, detached, and suffered from increasing levels of hopelessness.

The even scarier part of it: Even when student-prisoners knew that at any time, they were free to leave the experiment, none of them took up the chance. They were so deeply entrenched in the prisoner mentality that they totally resigned themselves to their situation, and literally became prisoners of their own making. At one point, they asked the student-prisoners: If you could leave the experiment early, without collecting your monetary reimbursement, would you? 3 out of 4 students said yes, but did not leave the experiment. Even when the chance to leave was offered to them, they did not leave! They said yes, and then walked back to the guard to be literally shackled down!

Zimbardo's point was that the situational forces at work are so strong, that they confer a kind of mentality on the persons in that situation. If you were an easy-going, carefree person, who was put into a position of power over others, the situation that you were put in would transform your personality into a domineering tyrant that you wouldn't recognise if you saw yourself on TV.

This is scary, because I immediately started seeing paralells in my work situation. Ok, not quite to that extent, or I'd probably be fired, but I recognised some of it in myself. At home, or out, I'm relaxed, easygoing but in my work situation, I have to change into a more aggressive, domineering figure. [Yes, some of those under me would probably describe me as being tyrannical. -_-!!!]

And once I started to really think about the prisoner mentality, I started to realise that there were many other paralells you could find in society in general. Doesn't everyone know someone who would tell you to just obey the boss, despite his outer-worldly requests for your soul, because that is what you are supposed to do? Don't people complain endlessly about the gahmen, but leave it only at verbal complaints because they see no point in taking action against those in power?

Come to think of it, everytime you succumb to a figure of authority, or a general way of thinking, simply because that's the way things are, aren't you succumbing to a kind of prisoner mentality? Your job may suck, you may feel depressed, but you stick at it anyway, because of the perceived benefits in terms of the paycheque, and because you're not entirely sure that things would be better somewhere else. You've become a prisoner of the company in your own mind!

And just as in the experiment, these are boundaries that exist in our own mind and nowhere else. Is it such a moral sin if you decide to quit your job? Or get out of a bad relationship? Or decide to become a full-time bartop dancer? And yet there are people who will subscribe to that way of thinking, and who will tell you that such things cannot be done, because of various reasons, but actually because it just isn't done this way in our society. These people have created a prison for themselves, even though the prison door was never closed and locked.

You don't have to stay in a bad situation in life. You can always get out and change yourself. It only depends on whether you want to accept that you have this chance at freedom and whether you are willing to take it.

This somewhat reminds me of a scene from The Sandman: Season of Mists. Lucifer is talking to Morpheus, and of the souls in Hell, he comments wryly, that they can ascend to Heaven any time they want. They are only there as long as they want to inflict punishment on themselves for their sins on Earth. And some of them put themselves there for eternity.

It may look a long road to freedom, but maybe it's not as long as we think it is, as long as we start walking on it.

I'm still reading the book, so I haven't reached the part where it gives tips on how to get out of that prisoner mentality. But I am starting to think twice about the whole career deal and about what I really want for myself out of life. Freedom? Or handbags? ;)

I realised that after a while, due to my bag-whorish tendencies, my relationship seems to be progressing in terms of the bags he buys for me. :s Yesterday, it reached a all-time peak in the form of a *little* something he *subsidised* for me. Well, it ain't a gift but at least I got a really good discount out of it. :p Oh, and it comes from a new-yorkish brand named after a woman, in case you're wondering.

[rest assured, it ain't an LV. For that, I'd have to marry and bear him at least one child. :s]